Read This Immortal for Free Online Page B

feelings."
    "It just goes to show you that you can never be too sure, doesn't it?"
    "Yes." He gestured to indicate the onlookers.
    "They are all pantheists, aren't they?"
    I shook my head. "Primitive animists."
    "What is the difference?"
    "Well, that Coke bottle you just emptied is going to occupy the altar, or pe, as it is called, as a vessel for Angelsou, since it has enjoyed an intimate mystical relationship with the god. That's the way an animist would see it. Now, a pantheist just might get a little upset at somebody's coming in to his ceremonies uninvited and creating a disturbance such as we just did. A pantheist might be moved to sacrifice the intruders to Ague Woyo, god of the sea, by hitting them all over the head in a similar ceremonial manner and tossing them off the end of the dock. Therefore, I am not going to have to explain to Mama Julie that all these people standing around glaring at us are really animists. Excuse me a minute."
    It wasn't really that bad, but I wanted to shake him up a bit. I think I did.
    After I'd apologized and said good-night, I picked up Hasan. He was out cold and I was the THIS IMMORTAL 43
    only one big enough to carry him.
    The street was deserted except for us, and Agu^
    Woyo's big blazeboat was cutting the waves somewhere just under the eastern edge of the world and splashing the sky with all his favorite colors.
    DOS Santos, at my side, said, "Perhaps you were correct. Maybe we should not have come along."
    I didn't bother to answer him, but Ellen, who was walking up ahead with Myshtigo, stopped, turned, and said, "Nonsense. If you hadn't, we would have missed the tentmaker's wonderful dra-matic monologue." By then, I was within range and both her hands shot out and wrapped around my throat. She applied no pressure, but she grimaced horribly and observed, "Ur! Mm! Ugh! I'm possessed of Angelsou and you've had it." Then she laughed.
    "Let go my throat or I'll throw this Arab at you,"
    I said, comparing the orangebrown color other hair with the orangepink color of the sky behind her, and smiled.
    "He's a heavy one, too," I added.
    Then, a second before she let go, she applied some pressure-a little bit too much to be playful-and then she was back on Myshtigo's arm and we were walking again. Well, women never slap me because I always turn the other cheek first and they're afraid of the fungus, so I guess a quick choke is about the only alternative.
    "Frightfully interesting," said Red Wig. "Felt strange. As if something inside me was dancing along with them. Odd feeling, it was. I don't really like dancing-any kind."
    "What kind of accent do you have?" I interrupted her. "I've been trying to place it."

44 ROGER ZELAZNY
    "Don't know," she said. "I'm sort of Irish-French. Lived in the Hebrides-also Australia, Japan-till I was nineteen ..."
    Hasan moaned just then and flexed his muscles and I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder.
    I set him down on a doorstep and shook him down. I found two throwing knives, another stiletto, a very neat gravity knife, a saw-edged Bowie, strangling wires, and a small metal case containing various powders and vials of liquids which I did not care to inspect too closely. I liked the gravity knife, so I kept it for myself. It was a Coricama, and very neat.
    Late the next day-call it evening-I shanghaied old Phil, determined to use him as the price of ad-mission to DOS Santos' suite at the Royal. The Radpol still reveres Phil as a sort of Returnist Tom Paine, even though he began pleading innocent to that about half a century ago, back when he began getting mysticism and respectability. While his Call of Earth probably is the best thing he ever wrote, he also drafted the Articles of Return, which helped to start the trouble I'd wanted started. He may do much disavowing these days, but he was a trouble-maker then, and I'm sure he still files away all the fawning gazes and bright words it continues to bring him, takes them out every now and then, dusts them off,